The research proposed here will extend and diversify a study of the natural course of recovery of language and cognitive functioning in the earliest phases following stroke. The study presently uses a procedure of systematic patient observation during the length of their hospitalization. One hundred and twenty patients are being studied. Features of communication, language comprehension, orientation, visual-spatial abilities are observed and documented. These observations are related to formal speech and language measurement at one, two and three months post-stroke, using multiple regression analysis. Both right and left hemispheric stroke is studied, using an unselected post-stroke sample seen within 48-72 hours post-ictus. This proposal addresses 1) extending the follow-up period to one year for symptomatic patients to complete the picture of natural recovery of these features, 2) increasing the number of symptomatic patients to 150; 3) using the method additionally with patients who have extra-axial brain tumors; 4) adding a control group on non-brain damaged hospitalized patients for comparison with the asymptomatic patients in the present study, and 5) using the data on patients who rapidly recover from aphasia to develop a model of recovery. The objective is to provide early prognostic information for planning treatment, as well as to chronicle the recovery process. Disciplines for which the project is of interest include speech/language pathology, neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, and neurolinguistics.